Page 4 of Her Devoted HERO

Aiden and Gray nodded their heads.

The plane began its descent and went back to their seats. Dex continued to monitor his computer for as long as he could. By the time they set down, Washington DC had sent Dex and the MPs rundowns on the three main e-mail contacts of Anders.

“Shit,” Dex muttered. Anders was in deep.

He closed his computer and followed the others off the plane. The heat hit him hard as he disembarked.

“I wanted to work on my tan.” Wyatt Leeds grinned.

Dex saw Hunter roll his eyes a second before he donned his sunglasses. The tarmac wavered in front of him from the heat roiling off the ground.

“Welcome,” a man in an Egyptian uniform said formally to Dex and the others. “We have quarters set up for you.”

“I was told that Captain Adams would be here,” Gray said referring to the head MP handling the investigation.

“He’s been detained. I am Major Mohammed Farouk. I will be coordinating your stay here on base.”

“Thank you,” Gray said with a nod. “These are my men. This is my second-in-command Senior Chief Aiden O’Malley. Then you have Dalton Sullivan, Wyatt Leeds, Griffin Porter, Hunter Diaz and my computer specialist, Dexter Evans.”

The major acknowledged them with a stiff nod, then pointed to a truck. They loaded up and were soon in front of a building that had been recently built. The base had just officially opened and was considered to be the gem of the Middle East. He grinned when they got inside, it did his heart good to know that a barracks was a barracks, even if it was supposed to be a jewel.

“You’ve arrived in time for our midday meal. It will be in a half hour,” the major informed Gray. “My man will come and escort you to the dining hall in twenty minutes.” He turned and left.

“Get situated. I’m going to see what’s keeping Adams and maybe we can have some answers by the time we’ve eaten,” Gray told them.

Dex dumped his shit on one of the bunks and immediately pulled out his laptop. “Lieutenant,” he called Gray over. “I need to show you some intel that came in right before we landed.”

Aiden followed Gray over to Dex’s bunk. “Whatchya got?” Gray asked.

“Anders has actually been playing footsy with Taruk El Mahdy, along with two big time collectors.”

“El Mahdy? Is he out of his goddamn mind?” Aiden demanded. “He’s number three on the US terrorist watch list!”

“It’s not El Mahdy directly, it’s his cousin out of Tangiers. According to the guys at Langley, there is no doubt that he’s a conduit to El Mahdy. Everything has been encrypted. They’re working on getting the e-mail content, but they don’t know when they’ll get it decrypted.”

“And the collectors?” Gray asked.

“One’s out of London, the other’s out of Hong Kong. The encryption on their e-mails have been easy to break. They found out that Anders has been selling artifacts for damn near the entire four years his father-in-law, Ambassador Letterman, has been stationed in Egypt.”

Dex wasn’t surprised to see the looks of disgust on Aiden and Gray’s faces. It was the same thing he was feeling. Asshole had a fan-fucking-tastic life with a beautiful wife and two daughters and was a greedy, grasping bastard who was risking the lives of his family. Plus, he was getting into bed with one of the evilest assholes in the world. The whole thing made Dex want to punch a wall.

“Dex, did you hear me?”

“What?” He needed to keep his shit sorted.

“I asked if they’ve found any connection to the ambassador.”

“Nada so far, but they’re continuing to look,” Dex answered.

“Gray!” Hunter called from near the entrance of the barracks. Their heads turned and saw that one of the Egyptian soldiers had arrived. He was standing at attention.

“Come on everyone. Time to eat,” Gray called out.

***

Captain Adams arrived ten minutes after they returned to the barracks. He was one of those wiry men who seemed to vibrate with energy. His gaze missed nothing during the introductions, and he zeroed in on Dex.

“Did you get the intel from DC?” he demanded immediately.